Hamilton easily wins in China

Lewis Hamilton for the fifth time in his career won the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. British driver led from start to finish and scored the 54th win in his F1 career.

The top 3 standings remained unchanged after the start but Daniel Ricciardo took the 4th place from Kimi Raikkonen. In the middle of the grid, Sergio Perez tagged the right left of Lance Stroll‘s car, sending him spinning and Williams’ driver was out of the race. Another accident was seen on lap 4 when Sauber’s reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi, who crashed during qualifying on Saturday, again hit the barriers, this at a time at finish straight after losing the grip, and caused another safety car deployment. That was a call for most of the drivers to change the tires.

Start of the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix

After the first quarter of the race, Hamilton still was in charge but his nearest rival was Max Verstappen who started from the 16th position. Daniel Ricciardo was at the 3rd place, followed by two Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Valtteri Bottas dropped to the 10th after having a spin few laps earlier whilst the safety car was on the track.

In the following laps, Vettel was very aggressive and managed to overtake Raikkonen and Ricciardo to climb up to the 3rd place. On lap 29 Verstappen made a big mistake, lost 2nd place to Vettel and had to make an unplanned pit stop. However, he kept the 3rd position but was too far from Ferrari driver.

Hamilton’s lead wasn’t threatened at any moment, so the Mercedes driver calmly scored first win of the season. Vettel finished 2nd to keep the lead in the championship while Verstappen was able to keep the 3rd position after a great battle with his teammate Daniel Ricciardo who finished 4th in the second race of the season.